


My Face Is A Weapon

by sergeant_angel



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, R plus L equals J, arya now is not the time to argue about zombie nomenclature, cersei tries not to be a dick OR DOES SHE, hand wavey plot timelines, i love arya so much, if you're an assassin who doesn't steal faces then what even is The Point, permission to board the ss jonrya, reunion eventually, south not north
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 10:33:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12057177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sergeant_angel/pseuds/sergeant_angel
Summary: While in King's Landing, Cersei pulls Jon aside to tell him what she knows of the fate of his youngest sister.The conversation doesn't end the way he anticipated.(or, what happens when all you need is one face to change the fate of a kingdom)





	My Face Is A Weapon

**Author's Note:**

> five year age gap, etc. etc.  
> slowly pulling in book canon to combine with show plot points because I am on like. book two. so. keep that in mind. also first time writing cersei, so she may be ooc. let me know.  
> I guess another warning would be death because GoT and everyone dies but it's not graphic

Daenerys is the last to arrive, and Drogon and Rhaegal circle over their mother as Cersei gives her a flat smile. "You are late, _mhysa_." 

"You know how children are," Daenerys shrugs, her smile as insincere are Cersei's. "Forgive me. You _did_." 

Cersei's lips thin at this and though Jon has no great love for the woman, he does think it a cruel jab. He realizes with a start that Cersei's eyes are on him. 

"Your nephew does not approve of your joke." Her smile turns bitter as it twists across her face. "How does the North love you, a Targaryen in Winterfell?" 

"Well enough," Daenerys answers for him. "They chose him to rule." 

"They chose a Stark bastard," Cersei points out. "Not a Targaryen heir."

"Stark blood runs in my veins," Jon interrupts. "And Sansa will rule should I die here, Queen Cersei."

"What cause have I to believe a Stark _or_ a Targaryen? And why should I lay down my arms while the two of you join forces? Marrying one another in the Targaryen style to solidify your claim to the Iron Throne?" 

Jon grinds his teeth. This bloody argument again. "I don't give a _damn_ about that iron monstrosity," he snarls. "I just want to go _home_ and live in peace." 

Except home isn't a place, home is a person long gone, and no amount of wishing will return her.

* * *

 

"She wants to speak to you," Tyrion sighs when he returns from talking to Cersei. Daenerys makes to stand when her Hand shakes his head. "Not you, my queen. Jon Snow." 

Daenerys narrows her eyes at Jon. "What does she wish to say to you? She has already pledged her armies. She has already agreed to a truce." Daenerys lays a hand on Jon's shoulder. "She will propose a marriage alliance, now she knows you are a Targaryen. You _cannot_ accept." 

"Your Grace—your graces—you do not know my sister. There is nothing she wants less than another marriage alliance. I was here the last time someone attempted to make her marry against her will. The Sept of Baelor is now a hole in the ground because of it." 

Daenerys takes Jon's hands in hers. "Promise me, nephew. _Promise_ me." 

"I swear," he assures her. "I shall never marry Cersei Lannister." 

* * *

Ser Gregor Clegane steps aside to let Jon enter the Queen's chambers. She seems ill at ease, though wights have that effect on people, Jon supposes. Her silver crown has been set aside and she tugs at the cuffs of her dress as though they chafe.  

"Your Grace?" Jon breaks the silence when it becomes apparent she will not. "You asked to speak with me." 

"Of course." She clasps her hands behind her back before turning to him. "When was the last time we saw one another?" 

Jon looks at the Mad Queen strangely. "When you left Winterfell, when King Robert was alive and my father—my _uncle_ \--was his Hand." 

For some reason this makes Cersei laugh, a smile twisting her lips. "That was the last time you saw many of them, was it not? Brother, father, sister—cousins, I suppose." 

"Yes." 

"You stayed on the Wall when my Joffrey killed your father. You stayed when your brother took a crown. When we held your sister. You claim such love for them, yet you stayed. Why?" 

"I took an oath to the Night's Watch. I would not be the man they loved if I left." 

"You died for her," Cersei gazes at him, something unfathomable in her eyes. "Your Brothers of the Night's Watch killed you for saving a girl you thought was her. That wild little creature." 

"Arya," Jon grits out. He did die for her; he would again if it would bring her home. "Her name is Arya." 

"Is? You don't believe her dead, then?" 

"I would know, Your Grace." 

"Would you?" She muses, pacing towards the window. "What would you do for her?" She turns and pins him with her gaze. "If I could tell you the fate of your little sister, what would you do for me?" 

Jon does not trust himself to speak. He does not know what he would do for Arya; he is almost afraid of what he might. 

"Sit, Jon Snow. I did not bring you here to kill you. I brought you here to tell you a story." 

Jon finds himself moving to sit across from Cersei, though perhaps it would be better for him to take a knife to her throat and be done with it. He thinks of it, for a moment, his hand twitching. 

Cersei folds her hands on the table and stares at him. "If you try to kill me, you will be less a hand before the dagger reaches my skin." 

Jon copies her then, hands on the polished wood of the table. 

"What do you know of your sister's fate after she fled King's Landing?" 

"Little," Jon forces himself to say, willing to play Cersei's game for any scrap of Arya he may receive. "A man of the Watch was to bring her North, but they were beset by Lannister forces— _your_ forces. The man was killed--" 

"Yoren," Cersei interrupts, a strange look on her face. "Your black brother's name was Yoren." 

"Yoren, then. He was killed and she was taken to Harrenhal. She escaped from Harrenhal with help from a man named Jaqen, where she fell in with the Brotherhood Without Banners. They meant to ransom her to Robb and Lady Catelyn at the Twins during the Red Wedding. I have no way of knowing if she escaped or lived." 

"And how did you come by this knowledge, Jon Snow?" 

"A man she traveled with. A smith." 

This is the first thing he has said that startles Cersei, and it is writ on her face before she can wipe her expression clean. She chews her lip and for a blinding, boiling instant Jon thinks she means to mock him before realizing there is no way for this woman to know of Arya's habit of biting her lip when she was nervous. He forces his hands to unclench, forces air into his lungs.

"She survived the Red Wedding," Cersei finally says, her fingers running along a scar in the table. "The Hound stole her from the Brotherhood, and meant to ransom her himself. She saw her brother's corpse with Grey Wind's head sewn on it." 

Jon wonders, for a moment, how the queen came to know and remember the name of Robb's direwolf, but then she continues. 

"He meant to take her to the Eyrie and ransom her to the Lady Lysa, but they arrived not long after her death. She left the Hound and set sail for Braavos." 

"And how did Your Grace come to know this?" 

"Patience, Jon Snow. Tell me what you know of the Faceless Men." 

"They are assassins. Expensive ones. They kill in service of their god. They wear the faces of others." 

"To become a Faceless Man, one must become No One. They must remove all the trappings of the life they led before. You must be No One before you can be someone else." 

Jon stares at her, uncomprehending.  

"You gifted your sister a blade before you left for the wall, did you not?" Cersei rises again, pacing to the window, then to a large chest in the center of the room. She stops, drawing a long chain from the neckline of her dress with a slender key at the end. She kneels and unlocks the chest, drawing something slim and familiar out of it. "Needle." 

Jon is on Cersei in an instant, hands at her throat, heedless of the sense of it, only knowing that Needle does not belong in Cersei's hands.  

"Where is she? What did you do to her?" Jon snarls, snapping, feeling more like Ghost with every passing second. 

Cersei presses the point of Needle under his chin. "Stick them with the pointy end, you told her." 

Jon drops his hands from her as though burned. "How do you know that?" 

"Arya is a killer," Cersei gasps, massaging her neck. "Faceless, nameless, and deadly. She _killed_ Arya Stark to become a Faceless Man. Do you still want her? Little monster that she is?" 

"She is not a monster," Jon spits. "I will always want her and nothing she has done could change that. Feed your poison to someone else." He makes to leave the room, burned hand clenching and unclenching at the thought of leaving Needle with this woman, when her voice rings out. 

"I have not given you leave to go, Jon Snow. My tale is not yet over. You will sit, and let me finish it, or I will keep my forces at King's Landing and the North be damned." 

It is with great effort that Jon turns back to the table and sits in front of Cersei.  

"Arya returned to Westeros," Cersei's voice is soft for the first time, and Jon can almost imagine that she could have been kind, once. "Not long after you and Sansa took Winterfell. But she turned south to King's Landing instead of North to Winterfell, because she had a name on her list." 

"Her list?" Jon is so startled he breaks his self-imposed silence. "How do you know of her list?" 

"Because my name was on it," Cersei smiles. It is more a knife than a smile, and it feels as though Jon had been gutted by it. 

"Let me take her body to Winterfell," Jon barely feels the words, he is so numb from the truth of what must have happened. What else is there? Cersei has Needle, she knows of Gendry and the list—if Arya was alive and a captive, Varys or Sansa or Bran would _know_.  

"Jon," Cersei moves to crouch in front of him, caressing his cheek. Jon's stomach roils at her touch. "Haven't you been paying attention?" 

Belatedly, Jon realizes that this is the first time she has simply called him Jon. 

"You are the King in the North. You were Lord Commander of the Night's Watch. You must be clever. So tell me: what have I just told you? Look with your eyes. See." 

"You have Needle," is the first thing he says. "You claim Arya is a Faceless Man, and that you know her fate. You know of her list--" Jon's breath catches in his chest, not daring to think it, certainly not daring to say it.  

A cruel joke played by Cersei, nothing more. The thought of it—the thought of the _possibility_ of it—will be enough to break him, and he cannot break.  

"You would still want her? Someone more death than girl? After what I have said, would you be afraid of her?" 

Jon cannot look away from Cersei's terrible, terrible eyes, fearing and hoping for something behind them. "I have already died, Your Grace. What is there to fear?" 

Cersei finally removes her hand from his cheek, pressing her fingers to her own jaw—and then-- 

Jon pushes back so his chair skids along the stone floor as Cersei removes her own face. 

Jon cannot breathe or think or speak. The person—the person _under_ Cersei's face has dark hair that brushes her shoulders. Her face is long, angular, with sharp cheekbones and a noble nose and grey eyes that haunt Jon night and day. The face is familiar but strange, the softness of childhood gone and scars in their place, but still, it is her.  

"Arya?" 

Her face crumples when he says her name, tears streaming down her cheeks and Jon flings himself out of his chair to kneel with Arya on the cold stone floor, gathering her to his chest.  

"You've come home," he murmurs into her hair, rocking with her. "You've come home." He can feel her lips on the skin of his neck, moving, murmuring something.  

He finally pulls away from her, keeping his hands on her cheeks so he can look at her. Look at her or hold her, Jon can't decide which is more necessary for his survival. 

"I meant it," Arya tells him as he brushes his thumb against a scar on her forehead. "I am a killer." 

Jon told it true when he thought she was Cersei. There is nothing Arya could do that would make him love her less. 

"I killed the Freys. I killed Cersei. I've killed--" 

Jon doesn't even think as he presses his lips to hers to quiet her attempts to make him hate her. Arya stiffens and Jon pulls back immediately. "I'm sorry." 

What had he been thinking?  

That the woman in front of him is the girl he grew up with, but not? That he doesn't know who she is, or how the years that separated them have changed her—but he _does_? That she was his last thought before dying? That discovering that they were cousins, not siblings, filled him with pain and joy that had taken him _weeks_ to untangle? 

He opens his mouth to apologize again, or try to explain, but before he can so much as form a word, Arya has grabbed him by the collar and drawn him close, her lips upon his.  

Well. Perhaps they still know one another better than anyone else. 

* * *

 

When they break apart—and it could be minutes later, or hours, Jon does not know or care—he notes with mild surprise that Arya is on his lap and her hand has slipped past boiled leather and wool to rest over his heart, her fingers playing over the scar there, her eyes full of cold fury. 

He holds her hand there. "They are dead." 

"Good," Arya's vehemence makes Jon's blood hum. "If they were not, I would leave King's Landing today to kill them myself." 

She stands then, pacing like a caged wolf. 

It is perhaps the least important thing to notice, but now that she is no longer Cersei, Arya is shorter. The hem of her skirt pools and tangles around her feet, even as she takes a great handful of it in her fist. Jon has seen White Walkers and dragons; he himself was dead and now is not. He should be less surprised by these things.  

Arya picks Cersei's face up from where it fell to the floor, setting it on the chest with a tenderness Jon would not have thought.  

Arya catches his gaze and runs her fingers over Cersei's nose. "I hated her," she says quietly. "But her face is a weapon and all weapons should be treated with respect." 

Jon forces himself to look at Cersei's face, then. He will not be craven here with Arya so close. Not when he wonders how true she felt the words she said in Cersei's voice—that she is a monster. He has seen darkness enough, and Arya's will not deter him.  

"I need to go North," she says suddenly, and Jon cannot help but wonder how many times she has had this thought since she has been at King's Landing, and had no one to say it to while wearing Cersei's face. "I need to see Sansa, and Bran, and Winterfell." 

"If that is what you wish, I will not stop you." Jon allows himself a small smile. "I don't think I _could_ stop you. But you've seen what we're fighting. In truth, Arya, we need you to marshal the south to fight the army of the dead." 

"They are not dead," Arya shakes her head. "I have given the gift of death to many, Jon, and that is no gift. That is a curse." 

"It doesn't matter what they are when they kill you," Jon points out. She glares at him before a smile spreads slowly across her face.  

"No, I suppose it doesn't. How do you defeat an army that cuts you down only for you to rise up and fight _for_ them?" 

"With fire, and dragonglass, and Valyrean steel. The Lannister forces will help," he assures her, tugging her to sit with him in front of the fire. 

"They aren't prepared for the cold." 

Jon tucks a stray lock of hair behind Arya's ear. "No," he finally agrees. "But they can fight, and we can always clothe them better." She settles against his side, tangling her callused fingers with his burned ones. "How long will you remain here?" 

"I don't want to be her," Arya states, finally. There is no trace of a complaint in her voice, no fear. Just a fact. "But I need to be." A sigh that has her sinking even farther against Jon, as if she could melt into him. "I don't know how Cersei could transfer power to you or even Daenerys peacefully and have the lords believe it." 

"And there are no honorable lords in King's Landing?" 

"None who would give up the throne. None who would be a good ruler." 

Jon smiles, then. "I know a Baratheon." 

Arya turns to look at him. 

"You know him, too." 

* * *

 

It takes time; nearly a season all told, for Cersei to legitimize Gendry and install him on the Iron Throne. Less is the time it takes her to set sail for Dorne, and for her ship to be lost at sea, the only survivor Ser Davos Seaworth. 

A fortnight after she is presumed dead, the Mountain is found with his throat slit. 

Two moons after that, Arya Stark rides into Winterfell.  

A day after that, Jon Snow arrives, and Arya is _home_.  

**Author's Note:**

> part of me wants to write all the intrigue that would happen for Cersei!Arya to actually help bring peace to Westeros but also...I did not want to write it. So basically, Gendry gets put on the throne as someone who will NOT go power mad and who will also be super duper thrilled to step down from power once the army of the dead is dealt with, and then he'll abdicate or whatever in favor of whichever Targaryen wins the coin toss for the Iron Throne (spoilers: Jon will make sure he loses this coin toss). I know the jonrya wasn't super prevalent and was maybe a bit too fast paced so hopefully it didn't disappoint anyone
> 
> i'm sure somebody else has done this so feel free to point me in their direction so I can see how other people deal with this concept!
> 
> ALSO ALSO shameless plug if you DO want to see Arya murder some dudes who killed Jon check out my other fic [heeeere](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11907891)


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